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Part Twelve - The 1984 New Orleans Metal Trades

A strike is more than just an action. It is not like a demonstration
where you get out and yell a bit then go home to your normal life. A
strike by workers effects ever minute of their daily lives; it is an act
of sacrifice, and the longer the strike goes on the greater that sacrifice
becomes.

I am of the opinion that workers do not win long strikes, because no
matter what concessions are won in the end they never make up for all that
working people lose while on strike for a long time. I believe that if
workers on a job decide that a strike must occur, then great preparation
and timing is very important to keep the strike from becoming too long. If
there is no way to build the union power to prevent a long strike, then
the workers should advance their struggle on the job with different
tactics, and thus continue to get their pay checks.
Preparation for a strike should include two things:

1. The organization of the strike should have the goal of completely
shutting off the employer's cash flow. This can be done by workers
refusing to supply the shop with supplies and services, by workers
refusing to handle goods produced by scabs working the shop, and, if
possible creating a consumer boycott. Then, if possible, set up picket
lines wherever possible to broaden the strike and make a greater economic
impact.

2. Unions should continuously raise money for a strike fund and when
the strike begins start food drives, so as to lessen the financial impact
on striking workers.

Radicals and intellectuals tend to play up strikes as glorious events,
without really understanding the personal hardships that striking workers
go through. I have always made a point to talk to the rank and file
workers, and to listen to their stories of their hardships in strikes that
I was directly involved in and in those which I came from the outside to
support. I have walked many miles on picket lines and in marches
supporting striking workers, including postal workers, telephone workers,
textile workers, truckers, longshoremen, flight attendants, musicians,
Greyhound drivers, UPS workers and others. I have been out on picket lines
and marches for farmworkers, but they try to kept their workers on the job
and depend on consumer boycotts to win their demands. I have also been the
organizer of a Wobbly strike in Long Beach, California, so I have been
able to hear the stories of many rank and file strikers. Understanding the
hardships of striking workers has shaped my strong views about
strikes.

The three strikes that had the most lasting impact on my views that I
came in from the outside to support were:

The Solar strike in San Diego. Though this was not the first
time that I walked a picket line, it was the first time that I
continuously walked a picket line and took the time to talk with striking
workers.

The 1983 Phelps Dodge strike, where I spent a week at and was
very impressed by how strong the workers were. Never before had I seen
people so committed to what they were doing, even though it seemed like
the whole world was against them. Radicals and pacifists talk about
commitment and sometimes will engage in symbolic acts to try to impress
others with their commitment, but all such people could not even begin to
show the type of real commitment that I saw in the Phelps Dodge strikers.
That type of commitment was not something you could do and then return to
the safety of your home, rather it was the commitment of continuous action
where everything was on the line.

The P-9 strike in Austin, Minnesota of the mid-1980s. I made
three trips up to Austin, and what impressed me the most was not only how
committed they were to see their strike through, but also how resourceful
these workers were.

My experience has taught me that strong commitment is needed to see a
worker through the hardships of a long strike. Observing something and/or
reading about something is not the same as actually experiencing it first
hand.
Before the 1984 New Orleans Metal Trades Strike I had only been on strike
as a worker twice and those were very short strikes. During the months
leading up to the negotiations everyone had a feeling that this time
things would be different; the maritime industry was in a worldwide
recession, and so was the oil industry, which we were dependent upon. At
the same time that those two factors were causing a slow down of work, our
industry was hit hard by the policies of the Reagan administration.

Reagan had been elected president through the strong support of working
people. This was a good example of how people can be manipulated into
believing that a great enemy can be a friend when the right words are
spoken. I will not say that any president has been a true friend of
working people, but Reagan was the worst enemy of working people since
Hoover, and maybe the worst of all U.S. presidents. Much has been written
about Reagan's terrible polices and there effect on working people, such
as what he did to the air traffic controllers, but the maritime industry
just may have been the industry hardest hit by Reagan's polices.

The following four actions by Reagan had the greatest effect on this
industry:

1. Reagan eliminated the tariffs on U.S. ships having major repairs
done outside of the U.S. The reasons these tariffs were put into place
included; keeping the shipyards working and this allowed U.S. inspectors
to keep an eye on the work.

2. Reagan removed these subsidizes on new construction in U.S.
shipyards. The subsidies made up the difference between the cost of
building a ship in the U.S. and building it elsewhere. The reason behind
the subsidies was the same as the tariffs. it is interesting to note that
after the subsidies were removed, Congress gave tykes Brothers a subsidy
to build container ships in South Korea. This caused an end to new
construction of ships (outside of Navy ships) in the U.S. for many
years.

3. Reagan opened the door for U.S. flagged ships to reflag themselves
in countries of convenience, by removing all the advantages of a ship
having a U.S. flag.

4. Reagan cut the budget of the Coast Guard and redirected it away
from the inspection of foreign ships coming into U.S. waters to his
so-called war on drugs.

These policies pushed an industry that was in a recession into a
full-blown depression and shipyards began to close all over the U.S. The
unions, rather than organizing and taking action against these enemies of
working people, completely wimped out are started to accept concessions,
and this led to working people to compete with each other as to who would
be willing to work for less.

Three shipyard companies, for the purpose of contract negotiations, and
other reasons, were organized together into a ship repair association. The
unions of those three companies were organized together in the Metal
Trades Council but the Metal Trades Council did not operate as a single
unit with one contact. Rather each of the seven unions had there own
contact. In other words the employers were better organized than were
their employees.
We all understood how bad things were in our industry, and going into the
negotiations, we knew that this contract was not about what we would gain,
but how much we would lose. It was rather depressing to think that we were
heading into a struggle, not to gain anything, but to reduce how much we
were going to lose. We knew that we would lose double-time pay for
overtime hours and that there would be a cut in pay and benefits. The
employers wanted even more. They wanted to kick one union, the Teamsters,
out of the industry. I would like to say that the strike was fought as an
act of solidarity with the truck drivers, but this was not the case;
though some of us viewed it in that manner, the union bosses did not.

What the employers demanded was that the workers be called up each day
and had to show up at the ship rather than the shop, and that our pay
would begin from the time we reached the ship and end when we left the
ship. This would mean that we would have to drive ourselves to any place
along the river from Venice to Baton Rouge, and then we may have to wait
for a launch and ride the launch to the ship before our pay would begin.
Then we would work for however long it would take to do the job, and our
pay would end when the launch picked us up or we left the ship to the
dock, and we would still have drive ourselves home.

There ain't no way we could accept this. Not only would that greatly
reduce our pay, but also there was the matter of safety. Can you image
driving up to a hundred miles or so to a job site, waiting an hour or so
for a launch, working maybe 16 hours, then riding the launch back and
driving another hundred miles or so to get home? Then having to do the
same thing the next day? We knew that, in time, some worker would fall
asleep at the wheel and maybe die in an accident, so we knew that if a
strike were to take place, it would not be just about pay and benefits,
but also about our right to life itself.

For the first time that anyone could remember, all the unions got
together in a joint meeting to talk about the contract and take a joint
strike vote. One by one the head union boss from each union got up, spoke
about the need to strike and about the need to maintain solidarity. Each
told us that this might be a long strike and that we needed to prepare
ourselves for the hardships we would have to face. If you boiled all the
fat off of what they were saying, what was left was; we had to go on
strike, it would be a long strike, we would lose the strike and the only
question was how much we would lose.

We were told we would be setting up picket lines at the three shops and
the repair dock. We had all heard the rumors that two of the companies
were going to open scab shops under different names elsewhere. Someone
asked if we could picket the scab shops, and we were told that we could
not.

I had raised my hand to talk, but was not called on until there was no
one else left that wanted to speak. The union boss running the meeting
knew that I was a bit of a radical and did not want to hear what I had to
say; thus he hoped that my raised hand would get tired and I would give
up. Finally, when I was called upon, I got up and said something to the
affect that it made no sense to be picketing empty shops, while the
employers were able to continue the work with scabs who would be working
right next to union seamen and longshoremen. I stated that if the bosses
wanted us to show up at the ships, then the ships, and where they docked,
was our real job sites and that is where our picket lines should be; so we
should shut down the whole damn river from Venice to Baton Rouge.

I was sure that the other unions, seamen, longshoremen, chemical and
refinery workers and union truck drivers, would not cross our picket
lines; for we had never crossed theirs. If we did this, I said, the strike
would be over in just a few days. I went on to say that the only way we
could maintain our struggle and the unions survive was for all workers in
the maritime industry to unite and act together for all of our benefit. If
we did this, then we could end all scab labor on the river and union
workers would then control the river.

It goes without saying that the piecards did not like what I had said
and tried to come up with reasons why we could not do this, but I
challenged each reason.

Seeing that they could not get me off their backs, I was told to sit
down and shut up. This, I was unwilling to do, so they tried to sick some
goons on me to throw me out of the meeting. When they started to come
toward me, a number of my fellow workers that had worked with me stood up,
and as I have already mentioned, these were not people you wanted to mess
with. The goons realizing that they were outnumbered by a group of badass
working stiffs, who were more than capable and willing to inflict costly
damage on them, backed off.

The union boss that was chairing the meeting then called for order.
After things calmed down a bit, he started talking his bullshit again. He
stated that we could not do as I suggested because it would be illegal,
and they might arrest the union leadership. If the leadership were in
jail, he said, then the strike would be lost. I responded by saying, that
this strike was going to place a lot of hardship on us, and that maybe the
leadership should share in that hardship by being willing to go to jail,
if needed, and that unions are organizations of working people, I assured
him we were capable of carrying on the strike without them if need be.

I had never seen a group of people turn so red in the face with anger
in unison before. Every one of the union bosses was steaming at what I had
said. Then one of them called for a strike vote. I naively thought that if
the workers voted for a strike that we could resume the discussion on
picket lines, but within seconds of the vote authorizing the strike, the
chair adjourned the meeting even without a motion or vote to do so.

Later that evening I got a call from someone who did not identify
himself warning me that I was walking a dangerous path and that if I
showed up at the union hall again I would be arrested. They hung up before
I could say anything. Later on I would receive some phone calls
threatening my life.

Well, we went on strike, only picketing empty shops, following the
orders of our union bosses like good little sheep. The companies quickly
got an injunction limiting the number of pickets. They did this so they
could easily remove tools and other equipment for the two scab shops that
did, in fact, open up. The one thing that we had not foreseen was that
there would be a split in the owners association. It seems that the
company that did not open up a scab shop, (perhaps they did not have the
resources to do so, or for some other reason chose not to), after a month
broke with the association and signed an extension of the old contact.

Now I was in the same situation that I had witnessed many other workers
in, facing the hardships of a long strike. I remember the realization I
had of how different it was looking at something from the outside and that
of directly experiencing it. Since we received no assistance from the
union, we all had to cut our expenses down to the bare minimum. I must
admit, even though I knew that I had to greatly reduce my spending, it was
something that was very hard for me to do. I loved the New Orleans
culture, going out to the nightclubs or hanging out in coffee houses was
something that I did a lot. Hell, I hardly ever ate meals at home, for the
restaurant food was so good. Now all that changed for me; all I could do
was pay rent and eat the cheapest food I could find. Those with large
families had it harder.

Strikes that go on for long are not the glorious events that so many
middle class radicals seem to think they are. Rather, they become
something that you have to do, but don't much like; kind of like going to
the dentist. How do you explain to some intellectual middle-class radical
the pain in your heart when you must tell your young children that they
cannot have any new toys? Or that they must eat beans, rice and bread two
times a day, and there is not even money for desert? Or that you cannot
buy them new shoes when their old ones wear out? A young child will not
understand the reasons for a strike, and you are left with a painful
feeling of guilt; that somehow you are responsible of the suffering for a
young one. There are no words that can really express this; for these are
emotions, not intellectual concepts.

I could tell you of seeing grown men break down and cry over the
hardships of their children. This is just something that you cannot
understand without ever having experienced it.

At first I tried to wait this thing out, but like everyone else I was
forced eventually to find whatever work I could. About two months into the
strike one of our crewmembers made contact with the Iron Worker's Union,
which had a lot of construction work building the Louisiana Worlds Fair.
Among the work they had control over was the building of a water ride.
This ride had a good deal of piping on it, and the Iron Workers allowed
some of us striking pipefitters to do that work. Unfortunately, that work
only lasted two and a half weeks, but we were very thankful for that
work.

Four months into the strike I was getting a little work on shrimp
boats, when I heard about a contractor across the river in Algiers that
needed workers for an oil pipeline out in the swamps. Where there is
deeper water the pipeline boat could lay the pipe from great roles off the
boat itself, but in shallow water the pipe had to be laid in by hand. So
this contractor was hiring workers to lay the pipe in a section of shallow
water through a swamp. They gave you rubber boots that fit all the way up
to your armpits, and sent you off in to the swamp you went laying pipe on
the pipe racks.

One day I had one of my most startling workplace experiences. I was
carrying a length of pipe with another worker, wading by some cypress
trees. Among the smaller trees you would push branches out of your way. I
went to grab on to what I thought was a branch, but right before I did, I
noticed that it had two eyes staring at me. It was a damn snake. I froze
with my hand just inches from it; it looked at me and I looked at it.
Then, not needing much thought, I decide that a parting of company was in
the self-interest of both snake and man. I slowly pulled my hand back,
dropped the pipe and skidoodled back to the boat like a bat out of hell.
It took a little bit of time before I was willing to get back into the
water, which the contractor docked from my pay. After that I stayed as far
away from any of the cypress trees as possible.

Seven months into the strike the machinist's union broke solidarity and
signed one of the worst contacts I had ever heard about. They took a $3 an
hour cut in pay and gave up double-time pay for over time. If that was not
bad enough, they also agreed to something I had never heard of before;
rather than classify each worker as a helper or journeyman, or have
different levels of helper and journeymen, as some places have, they
agreed to classify the work into four classifications. These
classifications would be based upon the level of experience it would take
to perform the job. That is what they would be paid. So, if the boss
thought a helper could do a job, even if the job was done by a journeyman
with 30 years experience all that would be paid was helper's pay.

Another month went by and we were informed that a settlement had been
reached and a contract signed. The contract cut our pay by $3 an hour,
reduced the amount the company would pay the union for our medical
benefits, and we lost double-time pay for over time. They reached a
compromise with the truck drivers, in that the company would continue to
provide transportation outside of the city limits of New Orleans. For any
work within New Orleans, we had to provide our own transportation. It was
basically the same contract that we had turn down with the exception of
the compromise on transportation.

With an 8 month strike behind us, we were all hoping to be able to get
back to work and end the hardships we had endured. Our crew showed up for
our night shift and, as we were talking about the situation, we discovered
that none of us had been at any meeting since the meeting before the
strike. This meant that the union had imposed the contract on us. Here we
had endured an 8-month strike and none of us who had gone through the
hardships of the strike had any say in the settlement. One person had
gotten a copy of the contract and found that the company would now deduct
out $2.30 an hour and give it to the union for medical coverage. The way
the insurance worked, you had to work 600 hours in 6 months to be covered
and then you had to work 300 hours every 3 months to keep it. Previously
if you did not have the 300 hours, but had worked enough hours over 300 in
the three months before, you could make up the missing hours that way.
Now, if you lost your insurance you had to start all over again, and the
union made this even more difficult by not allowing you to make up those
hours. This meant that all of us had lost our insurance and had to hope
that we could get 600 hours in the next six months to regain it. In
monetary terms that came to paying $1,3$0. This also meant the union was
getting $2.30 of the $3 cut in pay. Add to that the money that the company
paid into the insurance and the union got a nice 6 months of profits. No
wonder they imposed the contract on us; the union bosses made out like
bandits off of our suffering.

To make matters even worse, in the 8 months of the strike, work had
slowed to the point that the employers had to settle because it was not
economically feasible to keep the scab shops open. They needed the union
halls to provide them with workers, because there was not enough work to
keep the scabs. In the month after the strike ended I only got one week of
work. So I said to hell with this, sold everything I could and moved to a
farm in Kansas.

The strike had become a very depressing situation for me. Damn, what
good did all that hardship bring us? We were beaten down by the bosses,
swindled by the union, and, in the end thrown out of work by Reagan's
economic policies. I kept wondering just who in the hell was on our side?
The answer was always the same, nobody but ourselves. In truth, the
situation has always been the same. The only people that we working people
can count on are each other; that is, those that don't scab on us. The
only good thing I could point to from this strike was how we stuck
together and tried to help each other out.

This was no small thing, given the make up of the workforce. Taking in
all the trades at Dixie you had inner-city and country Black folks,
Mississippi rednecks, Greeks, Hispanics, Cajuns, New Orleans French,
Creoles, and an assortment of other people. All stood together as one and
there was no talk of disrespect.

Some people do not understand my criticism of the AFL-CIO (AF of
Hell-CIA as some have come to call it). It does not really have anything
to do with philosophy; rather it comes from my experience trying to deal
with the greedy parasites that control the unions.

To me, THE UNION is more than just a card, a badge, or a piece of
paper; more than piecards sitting behind a desk dreaming up new ways to
sink their fangs into us; more than just a name or fancy label. THE UNION,
is a bond between workers and what seals that bond is SOLIDARITY. THE
UNION, is an understanding between workers that says; "together we are
strong and alone we are weak." THE UNION should go beyond borders and
reach out to every worker the world over with a message that together we
workers have the power to bring peace and well-being to all upon the face
earth.